A Home in the City, a Homestead for Life

Reader Contribution by The Mother Earth News Editors
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This story is from Julie Lavigne, submitted as part of our Wisdom From Our Elders collection of self-sufficient tales from yesteryear.

When my grandparents built their little two bedroom home in the city, grandpa made sure there was a wood stove in the basement for heating and cooking. They also made pickles and sauerkraut in the garage and it always smelled of the drying dill from the garden.

Most of the yard was a garden where he grew the best tomatoes, cabbage, baby lettuce, onions, radishes; we ate very well. He didn’t buy plants. He saved seeds and started them every spring in old milk cartons and other recycled containers. I wouldn’t be surprised if he brought some of those seeds from the Ukraine when he made his way to the U.S. All of my grandparents lived on farms in Russia or Poland before coming to the U.S. But, my one grandpa was the one who really brought it home to us.

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